WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Department of Justice's, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) is pleased to feature the Dayton (OH) Police Department (DPD) as its “Community Policing in Action” Photo Contest winner for January 2021.

The winning photo (courtesy of the DPD) features a curious young man being shown a police cruiser by a DPD officer during a “Coffee with a Cop” event. “Coffee with a Cop” is a nationwide initiative that encourages positive engagement between law enforcement officers and the communities they serve. Said DPD Officer Mamula (pictured), a father of four, “I know how impressionable kids are and it’s important to create positive memories that can influence how a child, and later an adult, feels about law enforcement. You build trust every way you can,” he says. “Which is something we all try to do in our department.”

View the winning photo on the COPS Office website, as well as on the COPS Office’s official Twitter profile and Facebook page. DPD’s commitment to community policing and the importance of embracing the multicultural members of its community is also chronicled in the January 2021 edition of the COPS Office e-newsletter, the Community Policing Dispatch.

The COPS Office is the federal component of the Department of Justice responsible for advancing community policing nationwide. The only Department of Justice agency with policing in its name, the COPS Office was established in 1994 and has been the cornerstone of the nation’s crime fighting strategy with grants, a variety of knowledge resource products, and training and technical assistance. Through the years, the COPS Office has become the go-to agency for law enforcement agencies across the country and continues to listen to the field and provide the resources that are needed to reduce crime and build trust between law enforcement and the communities served. The COPS Office has invested more than $14 billion to advance community policing, including grants awarded to more than 13,000 state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies to fund the hiring and redeployment of more than 134,000 officers.

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